Ecstatic Encounters: Bahian Candomblé and the Quest for the Really Real - Softcover

Van De Port, Mattijs

Softcover

ISBN 10: 9089642986 ISBN 13: 9789089642981

Verlag: Amsterdam University Press, 2011

Inhaltsangabe

Ecstatic Encounters takes its readers to the threshold of Candomblé temples in Bahia, Brazil, where - for many generations - members of this spirit-possession cult and curious outsiders have been meeting to marvel at each other's otherness. Having allowed himself to be baffled by Candomblé's mysteries and miracle productions, the author explores the notion of 'the-rest-of-what-is': the excess that is the inevitable by-product of all reality definitions; the non-sensical that is the surplus of all culturally informed sense-making. Ethnographical insights in Afro-Brazilian mysticism are thus made to speak to anthropological forms of world-making, in a study that rejects the totalizing pretensions of all reality definitions, emphatically including those of academia.The theoretical importance of this book lies in its critical assessment of the constructivist paradigm that long dominates cultural and social anthropology. It adopts the Lacanian premise that the meaningful worlds we inhabit are lacking, and depend on fantasy and make-belief to be perceived as coherent, persuasive and incontestable. This study argues that the analysis of cultural forms should always include an exploration of the processes of cultural enchantment that endow man-made worlds of meaning with a sense of the really real.Ecstatic Encounters is written in an accessible, engaging, literary style. Philosophical issues are taken out on the streets, to be pondered in the face of everyday life; just as mundane dimensions of being are allowed to soil the conventional proprieties of academic text production.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Mattijs van de Port is an anthropologist and works at the University of Amsterdam and the VU University Amsterdam.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

Ecstatic Encountersgaat over ervaringen en gebeurtenissen die systematisch de toegang tot de academische tekst worden ontzegd. Het boek, dat zich als een roman laat lezen, vertelt het verhaal van een antropoloog in Bahia die vreest door een geest bezeten te worden; tot over zijn oren verliefd wordt op een 'informant'; met stomheid is geslagen door

Aus dem Klappentext

Ecstatic Encounters takes its readers to the threshold of Candomblé temples in Bahia, Brazil, where for many generations -- members of this spirit-possession cult and curious outsiders have been meeting to marvel at each other s otherness. Having allowed himself to be baffled by Candomblé s mysteries and miracle productions, the author explores the notion of the-rest-of-what-is : the excess that is the inevitable by-product of all reality definitions; the non-sensical that is the surplus of all culturally informed sense-making. Ethnographical insights in Afro-Brazilian mysticism are thus made to speak to anthropological forms of world-making, in a study that rejects the totalizing pretensions of all reality definitions, emphatically including those of academia. The theoretical importance of this book lies in its critical assessment of the constructivist paradigm that long dominates cultural and social anthropology. Adopting the Lacanian premise that the meaningful worlds we inhabit are lacking, and depend on fantasy and make-belief to be perceived as coherent, persuasive and incontestable, this study argues that the analysis of cultural forms should always include an exploration of the processes of cultural enchantment that endow man-made worlds of meaning with a sense of the really real.Ecstatic Encounters is written in an accessible, engaging, literary style. Philosophical issues are taken out on the streets, to be pondered in the face of everyday life; just as mundane dimensions of being are allowed to soil the conventional proprieties of academic text production.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Amsterdam University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2011
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 9089642986
• ISBN 13: 9789089642981
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 316
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar